So fellow harpies, I am an avid election watcher, participator, how to vote hander outerer, and election party partier, especially with federal elections. On the 21st August 2010 Australia went to the polls, with a unique situation – the first female Australian Prime Minister leading the Labor Party, and a Catholic Liberal Party Opposition Leader (Catholicism has generally been associated with the Labor Party).

This is the first election where I have not been actively involved in the whole election campaign process, in part due to writing an honours thesis, and also I have become disillusioned with what the two major parties, Labor (less conservative) and Liberal (conservative), have put up by way election policy. I couldn’t in good conscience be involved in election campaigning this time around.

This is the first federal election in my memory where it looks like that Australia will have a hung parliament – according to Australian electoral pundit, Antony Green (check out his stuff here – swooning over Antony Green is a national past-time). This means that in the Australian House of Representatives, the lower house, no party will be able to form Government and sit on the treasury benches as neither major party has 76 or more members in their own right (out of a possible 150). And my blood is running cold with the thought of Australia being pulled once again to the Right, and returning to the 1950s and so called “traditional values.”

So here am I, my tv turned on to the election coverage of the ABC (the national public broadcaster), watching with unbelievable interest in an election that will definitely shape public policy in Australia for the next 20 years.

The lead up to this election was mixed – the former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was deposed by the “faceless” head office machinations, and the first Australian female prime minister, Julia Gillard replaced him. The opposition, the Liberals, have had 3 different leaders in three years with even more rancour between changing leaders and party machinations. There was a major campaign being run by the mining industry lobby group against Labor, specifically to do with changes to tax policy. The Labor party did not pursue an emissions trading scheme despite the former prime minister saying it was the most important issue in our time, and not working with one of the minor parties in the Senate (the federal upper house). The Liberals were obstinate in the upper house, refusing to work with Labor to introduce policies that were part of Labor’s election platform in 2007. Add into the mix, general discontent with state Labor governments, in 4 states, across the country – and well it was going to be an unpredictable election.

With a hung parliament looking increasingly likely, independent and non-major party members are looked to by the major parties for the potential to form a coalition government.

The three sitting conservative independents, 2 in New South Wales and 1 in Queensland, have been returned convincingly to the lower house; though they may be considered conservative they would more than likely have more in common with Labor. It looks like two new non-major party left wing candidates have also been elected to the House of Representatives in Victoria and Tasmania – the Greens in Victoria and an independent in Tasmania.

At this stage the results of Western Australia, and in some of the closer seats the pre-poll and absentee votes, will determine the outcome of the election, and in particular whether the Labor Party loses more lower house seats than expected.

It’s still not sure whether Labor will reach the magic number of 76 seats. The pundits are predicting at this stage of 73 seats to the Liberals, 72 to Labor, and 5 to independents/Greens. In some ways, the Labor party forming coalition with independents and minor party members will be a good thing.

I will be watching the outcome of this election closely over the next 2 weeks, especially as the current leaders of the Liberals and Labor, depending on how many lower house seats are actually won, try to cobble together a coalition to form government.

15 Responses to “Guest Post: Mackey on the Australian Election”

Another Australian harpy fan here, although I am currently living out of Australia.

I must say watching the election coverage was perhaps the most depressing thing ever. And I remember when John Howard won back in 1996!!

I am extraordinarily disappointed in our fellow country people, but more than that, in the ALP. If they don’t sway the Independents and form a minority government I fear that they have burned two very good leaders for no reason.

And they will have plunged the country back into the precarious past. If the Libs get back into power, what will they do to the country? Issues such as social justice, refugees, the emissions trading scheme, women’s and gay rights etc etc.

To the rest of the non-Aussie harpies – this is one of the Liberal leaders’ choicest quotes of late:

“What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price, and their own power bills when they switch the iron on, are going to go up,” Mr Abbott said.

Sorry, this is a bit of an unformed rant. I am still very sad about yesterday’s events.

But I must say Antony Green = legend. Wish there were more elections so he could get out more.

According to Lauren of Lezzismore’s YouTube channel in her short, primarily humorous video titled “Queen of Oz m , she said she was thinking of voting for one of the smaller parties to try to oust Australia’s bigger parties because they’re both against gay marriage and one of the leaders had said homosexual culture intimidates him.

I’m, not saying that is what caused the result in Australia, but i think it could have played a role.

Was the mining tax a political overreach? From what I read, it sounded like the mining companies used it to scare the shit out of their employees and drum up support against it, making Rudd (and Labour) look like assholes.

@BearDown – the emissions trading scheme was left to falter and Rudd, I think, needed an issue to show leadership. With a recent whole tax system review (Henry Review), Rudd chose to take on the mining companies by changing how resources are taxed. There was some speculation that it was the mining companies or banks.

In part I think it was overreach, and I think in a war of advertising attrition, that the coffers the mining lobby group had to fight the proposed changes outweighed any federal government spend.
Also, the government ads defending its position bypassed the usual probit checks that Labor put in place for govt advertising.

Antony Green! In the midst of the sadness, a beacon of light. Love him and his nerdy, nerdy ways. I was desperate for Gillard to win. Desperate moreso for her to act like the progressive feminist that I *know* deep in her heart, she is. It disappointment me that she has made so many conservative policy statements: about tax, about interest rates, about gay marriage, about parental leave. Blogger Blue Milk said everything I would want to say about this election, and her commenters are spot on, too: http://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/undecided-voters-and-why-i-hate-you/

It has been a fascinating 36 hours here in Australia! While i would have liked a clear Gillard-led ALP victory, I don’t think this is as depressing an outcome as I initially feared.

The fact that the Greens party split the ALP vote will hopefully indicate to the ALP that they have to stop pandering to the middle and try and reconnect with their original left wing past.

Abbott did not win over all of Australia, in South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania there was a swing to the ALP. So as much as he will try and spin it as a Coalition victory, it is in reality far from it.

It will be very interesting to see where the independents will take us in the next couple of weeks! They seem to be indicating that a stable, ethical government is what they are aiming for, which is difficult to disagree with.

Are there any parallels between the situation with Julia Gillard and Kim Campbell, Canada’s short-lived female prime minister?

Ms Campbell won the leadership when Brian Mulrooney got dropkicked by his party when his approval ratings were at an all time low with an election leading up. The cynical of us believe that a woamn was chosen to lead the Progressive Conservatives in hopes of increasing the percentage of women who vote PC – this failed dismally. The party was pretty much destroyed in the next election. Ms Campbell held the big seat for only a few months.

Mind you Canada has a history of that sort of thing – same thing happened to Rita Johnston when the Social Credit party booted Bill Vander Zalm from the Premiership of BC (conflict of interest scandal, low polls, and yes, looming election).

I might be wrong, but it does seem in Australia, that when things start going wrong politically, that lately, women have been called in as replacements in order to clean up the vast loads of shitty mess left behind. It is seems to becoming a pattern.

Another example: Anna Bligh is now getting the blame for Queensland’s mess- but in reality, she’s still cleaning up the mess left behind by Peter Beattie.

I guess I am feeling a bit more excited about the possibilities right now. I think both major parties got the results they deserved. Australia decided – neither of you deserve this.

I hope when the Labor party stop eating their young and playing the blame game they realise that abandoning the left of the party to gain the middle is a big mistake. Of course people who support the humane treatment of asylum seekers and refugees and gay marriage are going to go elsewhere.

I still really wish for a Labor led minority government. I think the independants are all worried about the NBN, education and health and considering it is a conservative party platform to cut costs or ‘stop the waste’ it seems a better fit with Labor. Also given how they feel about the National party I don’t think they are going to make it particularly easy for Tony to deal with them (or Julia for that matter). Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott are particularly well and plain spoken and Bob Katter welll….he is funny but I get the sense he might be a loose cannon.

I think it is exciting. I kinda wish to move away from the cult of personality type politics that it seems to be moving into. Additional checks and balances are always useful and both sides are now going to have to deal with the Greens holding the balance of power in the Senate anyway. I think Australia is moving forward but probably not in the way Julia or Tony thought it would.

I have always, always voted greens first, then Labor, since I could vote. This was the first election I was tempted not to, because I felt like more people might do what I was, and that perhaps Labor needed my support.

But my three issues of concern were queer rights (gay marriage), climate change and the ridiculous boat people stuff. And Labor had very dissapointing policies on all of these. It makes me angry when people say that this is a clear sign that the ‘bloody coup’ (AAARGH) made people move away from Labor. PERHAPS it’s that Labor was moving away from their base and to the right? And that made people on the left, rational people like myself who rationally care about issues of human rights, unable, in all good conscience, to support them?